I get my best ideas for articles from readers. Yesterday, I helped a reader address an Internet connection error. My fix worked, but accessing the Internet Options menu in Windows made him curious:
“This got me to thinking. When I was getting to this site I noticed a lot more possible selections for a variety of things this computer could do. Is there any document, somewhere, that can tell a user what each of these possible selections do and what the upside or downside to selecting them?”
What a great idea! Let’s all learn about (or review) your choices when access the Internet Options menu. Start by typing Internet Options in your search box and clicking on the results.
The Internet Properties menu will open. Here’s the tricky thing about this menu. Some options only affect Internet Explorer, while others change Edge and other browsers installed on your PC.
We’ll start with the basics under the General tab.
Under Home page you can change your Internet Explorer home page and control whether the browser starts up on the home page or your tabs from the last session. You can also control how web pages are displayed. These changes only affect Internet Explorer.
You can also delete the Internet Explorer browsing history and make some changes to the display. Again, these changes only affect Internet Explorer. Make sure to hit OK to keep any changes you’ve made.
Next, we’ll check out the Security tab. These changes can affect both Internet Explorer and Edge. You can individually control the security level for the Internet, a local intranet, trusted sites, or restricted sites.
To adjust the security level, move the slider bar. You can also choose a Custom level.
The custom choices are somewhat complicated. I would not suggest changing them unless you are fairly tech savvy or following the direction of a trustworthy IT professional.
That’s enough to absorb for today. We’ll continue our look at your Internet Options tomorrow.
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